It may have been three years since we said goodbye to Sammy and Andy...and Ben may be 18 months old...but I still fight those feelings...those same feelings I had both before I was ever pregnant at all and the ones that first year after Sammy and Andy were born and passed. I still ache for my babies. I still struggle with being thankful...
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. In many ways, I am forever grateful that I had my baby boys despite losing them. I consider myself lucky that they chose me and that I get to continue to be their mom. But in other ways, I struggle with the holidays because I wonder what life would be like every milestone and every holiday if they were here. Ben is a joy and an absolutely wonderful little boy, and I am so very, very grateful for him...more than he will ever know. Nothing can take that away, but he is proof of what could have been, too. He brings these thoughts to me of what would life have been like? And I find myself missing my babies so much more this time of year.
And to top it off...I often find this time of year is when everyone is announcing pregnancies when they're with their families. Obviously those announcements happen all year, but I dread the holidays for this reason, too. I dread that someone will choose one of those moments to announce it. I do think that I have become a little better at accepting this, but I can't help but feel that pang of jealousy because usually it's someone who had it easy. Someone who didn't get to get poked, prodded, and ultrasound invaded to get their baby.
I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but what I do wish is that people understood that I'm still fragile. I'm still breakable. I still need you to spoon feed me and tell me ahead of time so that I can be prepared. I want to be excited for you...but I still have to prepare myself mentally before being in a big group of people. It still hurts. Because if I had my way...I would have four beautiful, healthy babies in my arms by now. I would be loving being a mom and not be trying to figure out what it's like to parent two angels and a living child while still doing right by all of them. I constantly question if I'm capable of being a great mom because I don't want to mess up. I don't want to have Sammy and Andy forgotten...and I don't want Ben to feel like he can't live up to them. I so badly want him to feel like he's perfect just the way he is and that he doesn't NEED nor should he want to live up to them. But I can't shake the feeling that some day my oldest boys will be forgotten....
Because really...they are a lot of the time...or I feel like they are. Their names and their presence isn't mentioned or anything to me anymore by the people who matter most to me. I feel as though others have moved on while I still think of them every single day. Three years doesn't fix it. It doesn't change that my babies are gone. My baby boy in my arms doesn't change all of the hurt and all of the battles that it took me to get him. It doesn't change the absolute pain that I feel thinking about the fact that my baby may be my only baby when I've always dreamed of a big family. I so badly wanted my life to be different.
Don't get me wrong...I am so thankful for what it's taken me to get here because I wouldn't be who I am...I wouldn't have the friends that I do...I wouldn't have the relationships with my family that I do...and I wouldn't have a strong ass marriage...if I hadn't been through any of that. But what it does mean is that I'm still working on being whole...I'm still working toward healing. I'm still fragile and I need to be handled with care in certain situations so that I can be in control of my emotions.
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